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Cambot
Overview Cambot is one of the Bots created by Joel Robinson that appears in the series Mystery Science Theater 3000. He is unique among the Bots as it is through Cambot's "eye" that viewers watch Joel, and later, Mike Nelson and the other robots watch the movies that are sent to the Satellite of Love each week. Cambot also frequently provides music, video clips, and other enhancements to host segments. When Joel or another character requests to see Rocket Number 9 (the ship-mounted camera that supposedly allows the crew to see the ship's exterior and anything in its vicinity), it is Cambot who provides the image. Appearances Cambot is only seen during the "Robot Roll Call" portion of the opening credits, often with his name reversed, presumably to imply he is shooting his own image in a mirror. His appearance was changed with almost every reshooting of the opening credits, most likely since there was little need to keep the puppet around once its one appearance had been shot. While originally being shown as a separate robot operating a camera during the original KTMA season, Cambot would later be changed to a robot with a built in camera during the show's official run. Season one Cambot only vaguely resembled a camera, having been built from the KTMA season's Gypsy puppet. When the opening was reshot for season two, Cambot was redesigned to look much more like a video camera. In a drawing fellow 'bot Gypsy once presented in episode 507, I Accuse My Parents, of the Satellite of Love crew (her "ideal family"), Cambot's body was shown as long and snakelike, not unlike Gypsy's. Midway through the fifth season, the opening was once again reshot and Cambot was again redesigned, this time given a more compact shape, becoming a round hovering ball with a camera lens for an eye. He would keep this form for the remainder of the series. From time to time, the characters on the show interact with Cambot in a Brechtian fashion. Cambot is apparently the conduit whereby the SOL crew and Deep 13's denizens communicate via a forward viewscreen (not unlike those of various Star Trek starships) that the characters look at, when they are in fact "looking into" the living rooms of the viewers. This screen should not be confused with the Hexfield viewscreen, which usually only receives transmissions from non-Deep 13 sources. Cambot also watches the movies while recording the guys watching the movies. Although a number of episodes depict Joel/Mike, Crow, and Tom reacting as if traumatized by a particularly bad movie, Cambot suffered a severe reaction only once, weeping when several security cameras were systematically destroyed by the hero in episode 620, Danger!! Death Ray. (This was signified by a watery effect over the camera lens.) Another rare case of Cambot interacting during a movie segment came in episode 202, The Side Hackers, when Cambot added an ESPN-like mock scorecard on one side of the screen during one of the movie's race scenes. When the Satellite of Love crashed on Earth in the show's final episode, Cambot lived with Tom, Crow, and Mike in their one-bedroom apartment, and viewed them watching the first part of The Crawling Eye. The Cambot character was inferred in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, but is never spoken to by any of the characters. Image:KTMACambot.jpg‎|Cambot as he appeared during the KTMA season. Image:Cambot.ComedyChannel.jpg|Cambot as he appeared during season one. Image:CambotMST3KVersion1.jpg|Cambot as shown during seasons two through five. Image:Cambot5to7.JPG|Cambot as shown in seasons five through ten. Category:MST3K Characters Category:Satellite of Love personnel